Payment Schedules

A payment schedule lets guests pay a direct booking in two installments: a deposit at checkout, and a balance Haven charges to the same card automatically on a date you set before check-in. It suits stays booked far ahead, longer stays, and any listing where a 50/50 split is what guests expect from booking direct.

Without a schedule, every booking is paid in full at checkout. That remains the default, so to let guests pay in installments on your own terms, you turn a schedule on.

Where the setting is

You can set it in two places. Both write the same per-listing setting and save automatically.

One listing: open the listing's Calendar page, choose the Price tab in the right panel, and expand Payment schedule. It sits directly above Security deposit.
Many listings at once: open Sites → Listing settings (/host?tab=listing-settings) and find the Payment schedule column under Policies. Click a listing's cell to change that listing. To give every listing the same schedule, open the column's ⋯ menu and choose Set for all, or click the column name to pick every cell and press Set value. See Set Booking Rules for All Listings.

A schedule applied to many listings is written onto each of them; a listing you add later does not inherit it, so set that listing's own. A listing whose PMS supplies the schedule (Lodgify, for example) keeps the PMS value, and a bulk change skips it.

Choosing a deposit

Deposit at booking offers four presets and a custom option:

Full payment at booking — the default; no schedule, the guest pays everything at checkout.
20% deposit, 80% later
30% deposit, 70% later
50% deposit, 50% later
Custom — any whole percent from 1 to 99.

The percent applies to the guest's total, including fees and taxes. A refundable security deposit is a separate hold and is never part of the split.

Charging the balance

Charge the balance is the number of days before check-in on which Haven charges the remaining amount, from 1 to 365. Picking a preset fills in 30 days when the field is empty; change it to whatever your guests agreed to. Nothing is saved until both the deposit and the balance day are set, so an incomplete pair never reaches a guest.

What the guest sees

At checkout, the price breakdown shows the deposit due today and the balance with the date it will be charged. On a request-to-book listing the same split is shown before the guest sends the request: the breakdown and the card panel say what is charged when you approve and when the balance follows, and the guest agrees to the later charge as part of sending the request. Your Approve and charge dialog then names the deposit, not the whole stay, and the balance goes on the same schedule as an instant booking. The confirmation email and the guest's reservation page repeat both figures, and the balance date is shown again when the charge is near. Guests are not asked to come back and pay by hand: the card they used at checkout is saved for the balance, and they can swap it from their reservation page at any time.

In the guidebook, the Reservation card shows what the guest has paid and the balance with its date ("Paid $33.12 · $132.47 on Jan 17, 2027") without opening it. Opening it lists each charge under the total: the deposit with the day it was paid, and the balance with the day it will be charged, then Paid so far and the balance. If a charge fails, the card shows Payment due and the sheet links to the payment page.

What you see

The reservation's payout card leads with the schedule: $33.12 of $165.59 charged beside the title, then each charge with its date and status (paid, scheduled, charging, failed, or waiting on the guest), what Haven has collected, and Still to collect with the balance date. The price breakdown below it is the booking's total, not what has been paid.

On Calendar → Bookings, the Payment column shows Balance due with the amount and the charge date, and the Balance due chip above the table shows only the guests who still owe part of their stay.

To mention the balance in your own messages and automations, use the {balance_amount} and {balance_due_date} shortcodes: "Your remaining balance of {balance_amount} is due on {balance_due_date}." Both are blank once the balance is paid. See Shortcodes.

How the balance is collected

On the due date, Haven charges the saved card for the balance.
If the charge fails, Haven retries over the following days and emails the guest a pay-now link so they can settle the balance on a different card.
You are alerted when a balance cannot be collected, and the reservation shows the amount still outstanding.
Haven never cancels a booking on its own because a balance is unpaid.

Changing one booking

The schedule you set applies to new bookings. To move a single booking's balance date — a guest who asked to pay earlier, or a stay you agreed to hold until the last minute — open the reservation and change the date there. Only that booking is affected.

Cancellations and refunds

Your cancellation policy decides what the guest is owed. The refund is taken from what has actually been paid so far: a guest who cancels before the balance is charged is refunded from the deposit alone, and the balance is simply never collected. A guest who cancels after the balance has been paid is refunded from the full amount.

Bookings that pay in full regardless

Some bookings are charged in full at checkout even when a schedule is set:

Bookings made inside the window — if check-in is closer than the balance day, there is no later date to charge, so the guest pays everything at once.
Group bookings — reservations across several listings on one checkout.
Gift-card and credit checkouts — stays paid with a gift card, a referral credit, or loyalty points.

Reservations synced from Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com or a PMS are paid on that channel and are not affected. A reservation you move to Haven from a PMS keeps the balance date you chose during the move. A booking the guest part paid somewhere else that never synced to Haven can be entered as a manual booking that is Part paid elsewhere: you set what was already paid and the day Haven charges the rest, and it shows and collects the same way.